


Infinite Potential

by scotlandgraveyard



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Doctor Who: Academy Era, F/M, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-01-18
Packaged: 2018-03-08 01:38:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3190964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scotlandgraveyard/pseuds/scotlandgraveyard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Time isn't a straight line. It's all... bumpy-wumpy. There's loads of boring stuff - Like Sundays and Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons. But now and then there are Saturdays. Big temporal tipping points when anything's possible. The TARDIS can't resist them. Like a moth to a flame.'</p><p>The young doctor is living out his days at the Time Lord Academy in the shadow of his much more successful friend the master when an attempted burglary sets him on a path there is no turning back from. Caught up in the heist of a Type 40 TARDIS and a desperate bid to escape the semi-fascist Time Lord Society, the Doctor is about to discover who his real allies are and what it truly means to be a Time Lord.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Blackest Day & The Brightest Day

**Author's Note:**

> I am co-authoring this fic with a friend of mine who isn't of ao3; her url is ohgodedogetorwho.tumblr.com. We have endeavoured to stick to the canon as much as possible in the writing of this but the academy-era canon is very vague and plot-holey so I have had to use a few headcanons in this work.

_Time isn't a straight line. It's all... bumpy-wumpy. There's loads of boring stuff - Like Sundays and Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons. But now and then there are Saturdays. Big temporal tipping points when anything's possible. The TARDIS can't resist them. Like a moth to a flame.” – The Eleventh Doctor (TV: The Impossible Astronaut)_

Gallifrey was a cold planet by Earth standards. Even in the summer, it didn’t get much warmer than Britain but was drier than the Australian outback year round. It hardly ever rained on Gallifrey. In fact, it only rained once every six months for half and hour and then stopped, like clockwork. This was the fault of the Time Lords; the leaders of Gallifreyan society were constantly meddling in trivial matters but never in urgent ones. Like when his parents disappeared for instance.

  In the winter it was bitterly cold and crisp white snow coated the ground, in stark contrast with the burnt orange skies.  There was a little grey area between the seasons when the crisp white snow melted to a grey sludge on the lower slopes of the mountains. On Earth we’d call it spring but on Gallifrey it had no name. Winter ended one day and summer came the next, just like that.

 The first day of summer was always the day of initiation. It was on this day in his eighth year that a young Gallifreyan who would come to be know as the Doctor sat, perched on a rock, watching the pathetic patches of sludgy snow that the winter had left behind.

 It all seemed so grey.

 The boy pulled his red Prydonian cloak tighter around him and gazed up at the largest moon; Pazithi Gallifreya was bright enough that he could see it by the morning light. Even that seemed to shine grey, duller than it’s usual gleaming silver. The morning rays of the second sun (Time Lord engineered also) glinted off the surface of the River Cadonflood, flowing between the valleys like a shimmering silver serpent. Gallifrey was a beautiful place but the boy only had eyes for bleakness.

To say he was scared was almost true; the time lords scared him half to death. They were all powerful; capable of ending wars and saving worlds, capable of so much good. The power didn’t scare him. No; that was where the potential for goodness lay, within a Time Lord’s power. What scared him was the neglect of this power. Their refusal to help, to appreciate the gifts they’d been given. What scared him was their passivity; they would let the universe burn and never lift a finger to stop it. They were the worst kind of monster, worse than the Daleks or the Outisders or even the Grandfather Paradox.

 His father had once told him the Time Lords were noble, mighty, the highest members of Gallifreyan society and that he would be lucky to have the opportunity to be included among them. Had his father known that one-day they would drive him from his home?

 In any event, the Doctor had never seen a Time Lord be kind or brave like Time Lords were supposed to. For all he knew, they just paraded around the Capitol in their red council robes and headdresses. And soon enough one of them would show up at House Lungbarrow to take him away.

 

 The Great House of Lungbarrow overlooked the Cadonflood River and the lower slopes of Mount Lung. In the Doctor’s time, it was a well-respected house; home to his forty-five wretched cousins, his older brother, a strict old housekeeper and – at one time – his parents.   
 When the Doctor thought of the Great House in the mountains many things came to mind. He thought of the domineering old bat that Lungbarrow employed as its housekeeper. At five hundred years old, admittedly not particularly old for a Gallifreyan, Satthaltrope positively despised the Doctor, instead favoring his vile cousin Glospin.  
 He thought of Quences, the Kithriarch, who’d always been kind to the Doctor - in his own way, that is; Quences was generally regarded as senile and stuck-up. Unbeknownst to the Doctor, Quences was also the reason they were taking him. A half-blooded Gallifreyan was not considered worthy of being a Time Lord, but Quences insisted; “You are destined for great things. The first Lord Cardinal of the House of Lungbarrow.” He would announce dramatically.  
 Sometimes, he even thought of when his parents had lived there but that was such a long time ago in relation to the Doctor’s short life that sometimes it was hard to remember them clearly. He remembered his mother – a human named Penelope – telling him the story of the Grandfather Paradox; the story of a young Time Lord who’d travelled back in time to kill his own Grandfather, leaving him simultaneously alive and dead. He remembered his father comforting him when he had nightmares of such a monster, reassuring him that the Grandfather Paradox was imprisoned on Shada, the Time Lord prison and no one had ever escaped from Shada.

 But above all, when the Doctor thought of the Great House of Lungbarrow he tried, and often failed, not to think of the night the Time Lords came. Not much had ever been made clear to him about what transpired that night. All he remembered was his mother screaming, the Time Lords flying up and down the halls in their red military robes like fiery spectres, then the wheezing engine of the old Type 40 with the wonky navigation that his father kept in the basement. When he woke up in the morning Ulysses and Penelope Gate had disappeared and were never seen again. Why had they left him behind? He dearly hoped that that was what his mother had been screaming about; that someone had given him a second thought before they ran away. These memories set him wondering; why had they left him behind?  When he asked Quences, he was told they had died. Was it true? This had never been made clear to him and he tried his best not to worry about it; he was barely old enough to remember them anyway.

Today, he tried to remember all the reasons he had not to leave Lungbarrow, tried to conjure up all the good memories. Nothing came to mind. If he didn’t want to stay at Lungbarrow, then where did he want to be? Not at the Time Lord Academy, that was for sure. But then what was the meaning of it all? Where would he go?  
 The young Doctor’s eyes fell upon a sludgy patch of snow on which his foot rested, the watery sludge seeping into his shoe.  About him lay a few bare rocks, some with weeds sprouting from them. But this climate was too bleak and cold even for weeds and most of them had shriveled or wilted in the harsh mountain wind.  
It was just grey. Grey, grey, grey.

As he sat and stared out at the bleak mountain landscape, which became more abysmal by the second, another memory occurred to him. It was the memory of cousin Celesia telling him about the meaning of life. Cousin Celesia herself never told him the meaning of life. She wouldn’t know meaning from a bar of soap. But she had told him a story.  
 Behind the Great House there sat under a tree an old Monk. The tree was ancient and twisted with silver leaves that glowed like fire in the rising sun and the old man himself was thousands of years old; as brittle as a leaf in the wind. He had sat under this tree for half his lifetime, Cousin Celesia told the Doctor, and he had learned the secret of life.

Now, on this, his blackest day, the young Doctor began to wonder; what was the meaning of this life of his? It can't have been the duty of a Time Lord but if not, then what? The life of a Time Lord was the only one he was familiar with. With each passing thought, the idea brittle monk and the silver tree drew him further up the mountain to where the old hermit perched on a rock.

 The monk was as resolute as ever as the Doctor approached, showing him no acknowledgement. the cousins had always been taught to show great respect for the monk and the Doctor was in no hurry to offend the man who held the answer to all his troubles.

“S-sir?” He stammered.

The monk didn’t waver.

“S-sir, I was wondering if I could ask you something?”

When the monk gave no reply, the young Doctor drew a deep, shaky breath. “You see, today is an…important day for me. They’re coming to take me away soon. The Time Lords, that is. They’re going to make me look into the Schism. Cousin Celesia says it hurts; some go mad, she says. Is it true?”

The Doctor sighed, “I- I don’t like the Time Lords; they’re cruel and vain and self-righteous and I don’t want to be one of them! I’m not even full-blooded Gallifreyan, you know. My mother was a human; Penelope Gate from Earth. She used to live in the house here.”

The Doctor gestured to the house, a little ways down the mountain but the monk showed no sign of ever having known a Penelope Gate.

“The point is; they’re going to take me away and turn me into one of them. What’s the point of that, anyway? If I have to be one of them, I want to be a good one; like Quences. He’s old and senile, sure, but he’s good!”

No reply.

“Everything just looks grey. Is that what it’s like to be a Time Lord; is it all grey and bleak? Is that what the Schism does to you?”

The monk remained still, staring off over the hills.

“Should’ve known you’d be no help.” The Doctor grumbled, getting to his feet.

Just then, the Monk raised one skeletal hand and he pointed to a tiny flower, a weed beneath the Doctor’s foot; he’d been about to tread on it. Laughing, the Doctor took a step back. “That’s it then is it? The meaning of life is a weed?”

The monk didn’t waver, his finger still trained on the tiny flower.

The young Doctor crouched beside it. At first, it just appeared to be a flower; a Gallifreyan daisy; a weed. It’s tiny orange petals stuck out at odd angles, as though a few were missing. It looked truly pathetic. But somehow, in that moment it became – at least in the Doctor’s eyes – the most beautiful flower in the universe. As he gazed at it, the pathetic little weed seemed to glow with life. And the colors – its four pathetic petals emanated the deepest, richest orange the Doctor had ever seen. It was like one of those expensive jewels the Time Ladies sometimes wore on special occasions; beautiful.

 It was in that moment that the Doctor realized something. The universe was beautiful; rich and bright and colorful and full of amazing people like Quences and the old monk. Sure, there were also Time Lords and monsters, but there was life and life didn’t stop for anyone, not even the Time Lords.

Racing down the mountain, he saw colours had returned, richer than ever. The suns seemed to burn brighter, the leaves gleamed more radiantly and the rocks were a sea of reds and browns and purples and golds. The surface of the Cadonflood sparkled like a thousand tiny white-point stars. The colour was everywhere and it was beautiful. He had to see it, all of it. All of Time and Space could be his.

 And that was the thought that helped him put on a brave face and keep it there, even as the Time Lord ambassadors marched him towards the Capitol and away from his home in the mountains.

And he never looked back.

 

At least not for a long, long time.


	2. Sonic Screwdriver

Some are inspired. Some run away. Some simply go mad.   
Cousin’s Celesia’s voice drifted in and out of the Doctor’s conscience. Images of the worst night of his life flickered in and out like the light of a candle.   
It had hurt. So much.  
He felt his every atom being ripped apart, a rhythm of four pounding in his ears; the heartbeat of a time lord. His heartbeat.  
But the colours; the colours were magnificent; all of time and space, all at once. It felt like freedom.  
Freedom hurt.  
Your name?  
This time it was the voice of the Professor at the name choosing ceremony. An innocent enough question; but the Doctor hadn’t known his name, not then.   
A million thoughts racing through his head; the colours of the universe, the flower.  
His own voice saying, The Doctor.  
The Doctor. The man who helps. Never cruel or cowardly. Never give up; never give in. That was his promise.  
A shattering sound and his eyes flew open.   
“Oh, you picked the worst night to sleep.” A familiar drunken chuckle.   
The blurred edges sharpened and the eighty eight year-old Time Lord focused on his roommate of seventy five years; the Time Lord known as the Master.  
“I’ve not been well. Where have you been?”  
“Oh, out,” the broken pieces of whatever crunched under the Master’s feet. “I tell you what though, those Shobogans have really been getting some practice in. Six to one and I still couldn’t beat ‘em.”  
“You took on six Shobogans?!” The Doctor leapt to his feet, sending the Temporal Aviation textbook on his lap toppling to the ground. “You really are mad.”  
“All the best of us are, Doctor.”  
“No, you really are. Like, Rassilon mad. What did you break anyway?”  
“Not sure; it kind of looks like spare parts to me.”   
“Ah, that was my model of the Arcadian citadel! I spent weeks on that!”   
The Master rolled his eyes at the Doctor and stooped to pick up the fallen book. “’Advanced Temporal Aviation’,” he read, “Doctor, you’re failing history. What makes you think you can fly a time machine?”  
“You’re failing languages. What makes you think you can play in a band?”  
The Master was struck dumb for a second, his alcohol soaked brain struggling to formulate a comeback. “You don’t need words to play the drums.”  
“Exactly. You don’t need to be able to quote Rassilon to fly a type 40.”  
“Whatever.” The master flung the book onto the Doctor’s desk, sending his collection of spare parts flying.   
“Why must you always destroy things?” The Doctor scooped up a handful of screws, dropping them in an empty box marked ‘PARTS: PROPERTY OF THE DOCTOR. DO NOT STEAL’  
The Master observed this act and scoffed. “Why do you keep that box? No Time Lord – or Lady for that matter – is going to steal a box of spare parts.”  
“Someone might one day.” the Doctor told him in an offhand sort of way.   
The Master plopped himself down in his desk chair. “And what are you going to do about it when they do?”  
“I’m going to marry her.”  
“And what if it isn’t a Lady?” the Master raised an eyebrow.  
“I’ll kill him.”   
“I thought you renounced violence.”  
The Doctor shuddered. “We agreed to never discuss that.”  
“I didn’t- I’m sorry.”  
“Don’t worry about it. Just don’t, okay?” It wasn’t a question.  
“Yeah, sure.” The Master reached up and took a leather-bound book from the windowsill above his desk. “So, are you taking Temporal Engineering?”   
“As a matter of fact, I am. Why do you ask?”  
“Because it’s the only thing you’re good at and I’m not.”  
The Doctor chuckled. “You have a strange way of asking for help.”

Time Lord education was divided into hundred year ‘semesters’, though the first semester, known as the Primary Semester was only ninety years. The number of semesters completed depended on the level of qualification. The lowest qualification, at just two semesters, was teaching at the Primary Semester level and the highest, at ten semesters was what was called Arts, Politics and Universal Public Relations, more commonly referred to as ‘Double First’ (named after the required pass mark) and qualified one to run for the position of Lord Cardinal of the High Council. The Doctor’s chosen profession, Cosmic Medicine, required five semesters with a pass mark of at least seventy in Cosmic Med, Temporal Aviation and Temporal Engineering (which were both prerequisites to be allowed to work aboard a time machine), Universal Law and Politics, Cosmic History and Quantum Physics and qualified him to work as a ‘Doctor’ aboard a Time Lord war ship. The Master, a rich newblood Gallifreyan (from a newer house, his home being the Great House of Oakdown), was undecided of his chosen profession and so entered into engineering, a course of three semesters which required only a 65 pass mark in Temporal Engineering, Temporal Aviation, Advanced Quantum Physics and Universal Law and Politics (a class which was required in just about every course).

Sometimes, life at the Prydonian Academy felt like one long blur. Between the night classes, the mountains of homework, band practice, Deca meetings and drunken escapades with the Master, the Doctor often felt he could barely keep up. The start of a new year was always the worst; starting new classes (and advancing in old ones) brought it’s fair share of stress. And so, at the beginning of their twenty-first year, the Doctor and the Master made a pact; the last day was a free day. They would go out and kick off the year with something awesome; anything could happen. Unfortunately, nothing much ever did happen. This was due, in large part to the majority of the student population being shut up inside cramming. It was for this reason that the Doctor decided to forgo the Last Day celebrations and work on a Temporal Engineering project that was due at the end of the first week. It was simple enough; disassemble and reassemble a sonic pen.   
“You can’t do this! Not this year!” The Master protested upon hearing the Doctor’s last day plans.  
“I have to build this pen! I don’t want to fail Temporal Engineering. I’ve been waiting years to get the grades so that I could take it in the first place.”  
“It’s not that hard! I’ll do it for you. It’ll take five minutes, tops. Come on, this year is going to be the best I swear.”  
“That’s what you said last year… and the year before that and the year before that and-  
“I know but you remember that girl I met in Law last year; calls herself ‘The Lady’. Now, I know that makes her sound stuck-up but-  
“No. I am not going to be the third wheel on your date.” The Doctor said in an annoyed manner as he pulled apart his sonic pen and laid the pieces out on the desk in front of him. When the Master and a girl were involved it was usually a date.   
“Ah, but it’s not my date.”  
The Doctor chuckled, “Well, who’s is it then?”   
“Yours.”   
“No! No. I need to focus these next few years! I need to graduate first semester with good enough results to make it into second.”  
“Your loss, Doctor.” The Master said with a devious smile and disappeared down the hall. 

A sonic pen was a simple device consisting of only six different pieces and it didn’t take the Doctor long to reassemble it. Hence, his reason for staying in was quickly exhausted, leaving him with a history essay and intense boredom to contend with. Subconsciously, he began to flick through the brand new Temporal Engineering textbook that lay in front of him. Mostly it was about time travel and the components of a time machine. However, he quickly came upon a page entitled; Components of a sonic device. The page began with the following phrase; ‘any device with a practical use can be transformed into a sonic device’.  
That got the doctor thinking. He was always building things with spare parts that he ‘found lying around’ - which everyone knew was code for ‘swiped from the engineering sector’. Without him really thinking about, the drawer beside him opened - the Time Lord Academy buildings, like many of the Great Houses, were sentient, usually with a mind of their own, but sometimes they picked up on thoughts - on top of the pile of scrap paper and abandoned designs, there sat his father’s notebook, a jagged crack in the faded brown leather gaped at him. Ulysses had destroyed most of the pages upon his flight from Gallifrey, but one entry remained; the plans for a device his father titled ‘the sonic screwdriver’. It looked pretty simple in theory; he had most of the parts in his box of spare parts, but there was one missing. It was called a Metebelis crystal; a blue sapphire with hypnotic properties, but that wasn’t the reason it was used. The crystals were dangerous; a source of fluon radiation (which apparently served as the sonic screwdrivers power source). Only third semester engineering students were allowed to use them. But that didn’t deter him; he knew where he could get one.

The Master returned late that evening – with no girl, the Doctor observed – to find his roommate soldering spare parts and wires in the middle of the floor.   
“That’s the most interesting sonic pen I ever saw,” he quipped.  
The Doctor was barely paying attention. “Not a sonic pen,” he answered vaguely.   
“What is it then?” The Master sat opposite him. “A pocket death ray? I bet it’s a pocket death ray.”  
“It’s not a pocket death ray,” the Doctor soldered the last wire in place. “It’s my father’s sonic screwdriver.”  
“What- what does it do?” The Master asked, gaping at the unassuming mess of wires and parts.   
“Nothing yet. That’s where you come in.”  
“Oh brilliant,” the Master said sarcastically. “I love it when I ‘come in’ to your crazy schemes. What is it this week? Steal a Metebelis crystal from the radiation lab?”  
“Actually yes.” The Doctor said calmly, gathering up the screwdriver and storing it away on a shelf.  
“You’re kidding. You can’t just be walking around with a Metebelis crystal in your pocket! The radiation will kill you!”  
“That’s why I’ve got this,” the Doctor held up a little glass case. “Arcadian diamond; it’ll protect me from the radiation.”  
“Where did you get Arcadian diamond? That’s the most expensive stuff in the bloody universe!”  
“Where do I get anything? I nicked it from the professor last year. Don’t worry, I fully intend to return it.”  
“You always do.” The Master scoffed. “That’s your problem. The professor doesn’t even miss it! Why don’t you just keep it?”  
“So you’re on board then?”  
“I never said that.”  
“Look, all you have to do is distract Aurelis while I take it. Ten minutes, tops.”  
“When do you plan on doing this exactly?”  
“After our first temporal engineering class which is on…” the doctor consulted the timetable pinned to his wall. “Wednesday.”  
“Sure; great first impression to make on the professor who decides your whole future. Aurelius is tough as it is, you don’t want to get on his bad side.”  
“Engineering isn’t my whole future.”  
“Yeah, but it is mine.” This was the first time the Doctor had ever heard the Master talk about his ‘future’. “You want me to risk my whole future to steal one of the most dangerous objects on Gallifrey, with a stolen Arcadian diamond case; all for another one of your gadgets?”  
“Err- yeah, I guess.” The Doctor answered pathetically; it sounded much crazier out loud than it had in his head.  
The Master grinned mischievously. “Sounds like a plan.”


	3. The Lady & The Liberation of the Metebelis Crystal

The Master was right; Aurelius was tough. The first one and a half hours of their first lecture on Temporal Engineering had consisted of the ancient professor – nobody knew how old exactly he was, but the rumours set his age at around two thousand - droning and wheezing about the endless rules in his class. The few hopefuls who had opened their textbooks at the beginning had long since started using them for the only purpose they seemed to serve in Aurelius’ class; a pillow.  
The Doctor wouldn’t have been able to concentrate, even if he wanted to, which he highly doubted he ever would as long as Aurelius was teaching. The radiation lab was just down the hall; the Metebelis crystal was literally meters away from where he was sitting. It frustrated him to no end.  
Absentmindedly, the Doctor tapped his pen and thought about the sonic screwdriver. It wasn’t just another one of his gadgets; it was his father’s design. It was the only real piece of his father – or either of his parents, really – that the Doctor had left.   
After the longest two hours of his entire life, the Doctor stumbled out of the lecture hall bleary-eyed from almost falling asleep, which he had done multiple times only to have the Master elbow him – unnecessarily hard – in the ribs. He was pretty sure his chest was already beginning to bruise.   
The engineering wing was located as far as one could possibly get from his room on the other side of the Prydonian Campus, which the Doctor was beginning to realize was a slightly huge flaw in his plan. How was he supposed to get from one end of campus to the other completely undetected? He pushed that thought aside, hoping the Master could provide the answer and focused on a more pressing matter; how they would break into the radiation lab.   
The room let him in without any drama; sometimes the rooms would get temperamental and lock students out for no good reason. The Master was leaning on the windowsill, staring down at the pavement that formed what was known as the square; a common area for the students who lived on campus. There was usually someone studying or reading under the tree, but today it was entirely empty.  
“Hello,” the Doctor greeted his roommate. “What are you doing?”  
“Mapping our route.” The Master told him.  
“You want to cross the square?”   
“It’s the quickest way.”  
“And the riskiest. If we get caught with that crystal, we are done for, I hope you know that.”   
“I know that. But we’re not doing anything wrong until we actually steal it, now are we?”   
“Depends. Are you doing anything wrong by planning to murder someone before you actually do it?”   
“No.”   
“You are a psychopath.”   
“Thank you.” The Master beamed. “Look, do you want this crystal or not?”   
“Of course I do. Why would you ask that?”   
“Because you’re doing that thing you do before you chicken out.”  
 “What thing? I don’t do a thing.”   
“You do. You over analyze the plan and then decide it’s too risky, so you’re not going to do it.”  
“I don’t.”   
“You do. Every time.”   
“Fine. We’ll do it your way.”   
The Doctor turned away from the window and stood for a moment staring at the half assembled sonic screwdriver on his desk. The Arcadian diamond case glinted in the sunlight beside it. As an afterthought, it occurred to the Doctor that maybe he shouldn’t keep stolen objects in plain sight, not that they ever had any visitors. “One more question; how do you propose we get into the radiation lab?”  
Without looking away from the window, the Master reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a crumpled slip of paper, holding it out to his roommate.  
On it the Master had penciled a few numbers in simplified Gallifreyan (the most common dialect).   
“What is this?” the Doctor asked.  
“The access code.” The Master answered in an offhand manner.   
“Where did you get the access code?!”   
The Master chuckled. “To quote a wise man; where do I get anything? I nicked it of course.”  
“We’re so dead.” The Doctor sighed.

***  
The door of the engineering wing creaked quietly on its hinges, but enough to make the Doctor’s hearts skip a beat; enough to make his breathing falter. He pushed it to and gazed around in the semi-darkness. Letting out a cautious, shaky sigh he stepped over the threshold, treading as silently as the tile flooring would allow.   
Click.  
The Doctor froze midstep. Surely he had imagined it.  
Click.  
There it was again; the unmistakable sound of footsteps on tile.   
Click, click  
It was faster now. Hide; he needed to hide.   
Click click click clickclickclick.  
The footsteps were increasing in speed, like someone was running. The Doctor sped down the hall, half out of breath and gazing wildly around for somewhere, anywhere to hide. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the hall that led to the radiation lab. He darted inside, sliding uncontrollably across the tile floor.  
“Ahhh!” A woman’s panicked cry echoed throughout the hall as the Doctor collided with something solid and went tumbling to the floor. Something glowing white slid across the floor beneath the doctor’s outstretched arms. Sheets of paper fluttered to the ground all around him, he felt something soft under his right hand.   
“Get off me you idiot!” grumbled a woman, pushing him away.  
Shaking the Doctor got to his feet, brushed himself off and stood facing his companion. She was a woman, about his age with dark hair, crouched on the ground gathering the papers in a haphazard pile. He stooped to help her, hastily shoving them into her arms. Finally, they both stood, gazing awkwardly at each other. “I’m sorry?” the Doctor offered.   
The woman laughed. “Yeah, something like that. Who are you?”  
“I’m the Doctor; first semester Cosmic Med.”  
“Doctor Who?” She asked, raising one eyebrow.  
“No idea.”  
“Yet.” She laughed again, rummaging in her pockets. “They call me the Lady; double first.”  
“Double first. Impressive. What did you mean ‘yet’?”  
“Just because you don’t know who you are now, doesn’t mean you won’t find out.” She answered philosophically, continuing to rummage. “Crap! Where is it?”  
“Where is what?”   
She stepped back, gazing frantically about the darkened hall, and almost tripped on the glowing blue object that had slid across the floor earlier. She scooped it up and held it at arm’s length.   
It was a perfectly cut Metebelis III crystal.


End file.
